Gates Dismissed

"Crowley also said that arresting Gates 'was something I really didn’t want to do,' but that 'the professor could have resolved the issue at any time by quieting down and going back into his house.'"

Try to understand, ladies and gentlemen. Professor Gates was arrested simply because this cop disapproved of his attitude. All Gates had to do was behave himself in a way that the cop would have found congenial, and he would have been permitted, you see, to return to his private affairs.

Now, I say that Gates is a fuckin' asshole. It has nothing to do with his conduct in or around his home, which is all his business and he is completely and exclusively welcome to it. It's about his resort to the charge of race as motive in the fuckin' asshole cop. I really am not interested in hearing about Gates' eminence or any of the rest of it while little nobodies are being jack-booted around by these impudent bastards all over the country, every day.

If Gates finds it necessary, for whatever reasoning, to stake himself to race in a matter like this, then he can have it and be as small and ridiculous as he wants to be. However, he had a moment to step out front on a far grander principle. Just mark it that he chose to play it like a punk. His choice must say a great deal for his intellect and values. He can have them. For myself, I only point out that the normal run of my observations of police predation will continue as before, and when any given moral outrage of a case is found in a black man's abuse, I will not require assistance from the likes of Gates. He cannot be relied upon to see the right thing.

That's too goddamned bad. He could have been a real somebody on this front.

(link from Carlos Miller, to whom you should be paying attention)